Pacific Railroad

The Pacific Railroad was a 19th century railroad company based in Missouri that operated from 1849 to 1872 and became a direct predecessor of both the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. Chartered in 1849 to build a line from St. Louis toward the western border of Missouri and eventually the Pacific Ocean, its construction was delayed by a cholera epidemic and did not break ground until July 4, 1851. Regular operations began December 9, 1852, running from St. Louis to Cheltenham, and the line pushed west over the following years, reaching Jefferson City in 1855 and Tipton by 1858, then Kansas City in 1865 after the Civil War, becoming the first railroad to serve that city. In November 1855 an excursion train fell through a temporary bridge over the Gasconade River, killing at least thirty passengers. The company was reorganized as the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1872 following a railroad debt crisis. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/